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1902 - 1981
Hungary
Marcel Lajos Breuer – Lajkó to his friends – was born on 21 May 1902 in the provincial city of Pecs, Hungary. His early study and teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dassau in the twenties introduced the wunderkind to the older giants of the era of whom three – Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Walter Gropius – were to have life-long influence upon his professional life.
Marcel Breuer was one of the great pioneers of tubular steel chair design, and as early as 1925 he had invented a series of systems employing continuously bent steel tubes to form the structural frames of stools, chair and tables. His “Wassily” chair of the same year, which is still in production today, was the first chair in tubular steel, and has become a classic of modern design. Although Breuer’s early student work, and even the “Wassily” chair with its daring spatial arrangement, show the influence of the aesthetics of the Stijl and Constructivism, his interest soon shifted to a more practical concern with standardization and economical mass-production.
Drawing upon this image of “shiny and impeccable lines in space,” Breuer designed his famous Wassilly chair in 1927 for Wassilly Kandinsky while both were in residence at the Bauhaus. Breuer subsequently designed a range of tubular metal furniture that had singular advantages -- affordability, hygiene and an inherent resilience. Breuer considered his designs essential for modern living.
By the time he left Germany in 1935 to join Gropius in London, Breuer was one of the best-known designers in Europe. His reputation was based upon his invention of tubular steel furniture, one big residence, two apartment houses, some shop interiors and several competition entries.
Breuer moved to New York in 1946 to found his own architectural firm, and like Corbusier, chose concrete as his medium of choice. He used concrete in his design of the Whitney Museum of Art.